Tag: 1914

In Australia October is known in many vintage circles as Frocktober. It’s a chance to wear a Frock every day of the month & raise money & awareness for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation. It was started by two fabulous Swing dancers.
This year my aim was to go Vintage every time I left the house & raise $1000.
I’m just shy of my target, but I promise to wear my 1950’s style wedding dress tomorrow if I get there.
Here’s a taste of what I’ve worn

Luckily I am a costume designer & was able to borrow back a whole stack of dresses I’ve made from about 10 years of school productions, plus a few from my own personal collection.
I think after this I might be doing a regular vintage outfit every week. it’s been a blast.

I just adore Downton Abbey and I’m so happy that I’ve gotten to sew from some reprinted Edwardian patterns this year! 😀

This dress is 1914-1915 which would be at the end of season 1 of Downton Abbey. I was able to find a reprint of this dress pattern from Past Patterns. This one is #8480.

Originally, I was going to go the whole nine yards with the bows and neck ruffle and sash but once I got sewing, I felt like it would be way too much!

For the main fabric, I choose an embroidered cotton with tiny green polka dots! From far away, it reads as white but up close you can see all the green. A more period option for the ruffles would have been green, but I like the contrast of the yellow better.

This dress was a lot of work to make since I was working with the original instructions which expect you to know a lot about how these types of dresses are supposed to go together! I also bit the bullet and worked with the original 3/8 inch seam allowance instead of adding extra.

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